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All-time team - Foreign born players

We may need to come up with a first and second team, which is cool too. I'll list some obvious nominations and people can add from there. Oh, and in the spirit of the thread, Tim Duncan (Virgin Islands) is not included. My selections highlighted in bold

The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).
I'm (maybe) back after being repetedly banned, merely for supporting a different NFL team than do certain forum moderators.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

How you would play healthy Sabas? Once you mentioned that Sabas had bad knees. Little correction, Sabas tore his Achilles tendon and after it was repaired he tore it again. After that basically he couldn't run and jump.
Healthy Sabas was a monster.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

I believe Petrovic is massively overrated. Not to sound cold, but that happens a lot when people die young (Kurt Cobain, James Dean etc.). He was a very good shooter, but other then that, what did he do? If we're talking about players ability, then there's no way Drazen is ahead of Dirk or Deke. I would also rank Detlef, Vlade, and Kukoc ahead of him, as they were much, much more complete players. And in the coming years I believe he could/will be passed up by Gasol, AK-47, Manu and Peja.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

How you would play healthy Sabas? Once you mentioned that Sabas had bad knees. Little correction, Sabas tore his Achilles tendon and after it was repaired he tore it again. After that basically he couldn't run and jump.
Healthy Sabas was a monster.

Still out of the high post...best passing big man ever and its not even close, despite the prowess of guys like Divac and Webber. I'd run half of the offense through him, especially when Nash wasn't pushing the ball up and down the court.

Between his passing and how crafty he was around the basket, I really wish he would have hit the NBA when healthy. As a Laker fan I hated him (and his crying), but really respected his game

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

Ewing should be in the list. Well, on the other hand maybe not - he probably learnt bball in US where he was living since 13 or 14.

Also, you should wait a bit with Nash, I think. Maybe add Ewing/Nowitzki/or Schrempf instead and move Petrovic to PG? The lineup would go big in that case, and it's quite reasonable as bigs used to be the main sort of foreign import into NBA for a long time. I think Nash is a legitimate candidate with his MVP prize, but I simply think that a person should play at least several years of top-class bball to be considered among the all-time greats.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

Modestas Paulauskas should be here. He's the obvious leader of the USSR team in 70s and winner of the notorious Munchen Olympics.

I was young back then, but I thought that Sergei Belov was regarded as by far the best Soviet player of that era, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame as the first non-American, if I recall correctly.

The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).
I'm (maybe) back after being repetedly banned, merely for supporting a different NFL team than do certain forum moderators.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

I believe Petrovic is massively overrated. Not to sound cold, but that happens a lot when people die young (Kurt Cobain, James Dean etc.). He was a very good shooter, but other then that, what did he do? If we're talking about players ability, then there's no way Drazen is ahead of Dirk or Deke. I would also rank Detlef, Vlade, and Kukoc ahead of him, as they were much, much more complete players. And in the coming years I believe he could/will be passed up by Gasol, AK-47, Manu and Peja.

Defence, passing, jumping and leadership skills - not just shooting. At least in Europe. He did not have enough time to adopt in NBA completely.

However, it is hard to compare people from different epochas. One thing is clear - he was dominating in Europe before getting into NBA. Kirilenko, Manu, Kukoc were among the best and won quite a lot, but never dominated so obviously.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

Ortiz is from Puerto Rico and played college bball at Oregon State. For some reason I remembered him better than he actually was....LOL. He was a big scorer in college, but didn't pan out at all in the NBA..only played a couple of years.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

I was young back then, but I thought that Sergei Belov was regarded as by far the best Soviet player of that era, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame as the first non-American, if I recall correctly.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

Defence, passing, jumping and leadership skills - not just shooting. At least in Europe. He did not have enough time to adopt in NBA completely.

However, it is hard to compare people from different epochas. One thing is clear - he was dominating in Europe before getting into NBA. Kirilenko, Manu, Kukoc were among the best and won quite a lot, but never dominated so obviously.

True. I admit I've never seen Drazen play live, but I do know he never won anything really noteworthy in the NBA and his stats were good but not spectacular.
Kukoc played with Jordan and Pippen, so ofcourse he's gonna win. Detlef was a Pacer many years, and wasn't as good a scorer as Petro but had a much more complete ame IMO. And Dirk is a bonafide superstar in the NBA, something even the best of Europeans rarely ever accomplish. As a matter of fact, I'm not so sure Dirk isn't the first European who has become a superstar here in America. Arvydas, Vlade, Toni, Petro etc. - all very good, but none "superstars".

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

I was young back then, but I thought that Sergei Belov was regarded as by far the best Soviet player of that era, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame as the first non-American, if I recall correctly.

Good point. Belov should be there, no doubt. From what I know, he was the most noticable Russian player in that final against USA in 1972. Scored 20 pts or so, including the notorious contraversial clutch points during final seconds.

Paulauskas was almost totally contained during that game, but he was the most consistent USSR player during the whole tournament, while Sergei Belov and 2-3 other players on the team had a couple of great nights each. No doubt Belov chose the best time for his great night and must be regarded for that, but Paulauskas was their perpetual leader.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

there was a thread on that on interbasket.net board (owned by American guy btw - I sense there's a hostility towards a non-american stuff )
the results of the "vote" after 19 people cared to express their view were as follows (pasted in):

btw, Mr. Basketball has added me to the ignore list, so I guess others will have to repost it if they find it usefull
I personally think that pretty much all players mentioned in here belong in the initial list obviously, Nikos Galis and Dejan Bodiroga are the most noticable absentees.

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

Nikos Galis was born in New Jersey according to his bio, of Greek immigrants. Played for Greece after being cut by the Celtics.

The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).
I'm (maybe) back after being repetedly banned, merely for supporting a different NFL team than do certain forum moderators.

it's all from the modern fans point of view, nothing groundbraking in any respect :/ people here adopt Galis as a non-american player, but no one mentions Hakeem, Ewing or Mutombo as they're considered American players basically

Re: All-time team - Foreign born players

Andrew Gaze may have been the greatest ever Australian bball player, but Bogut has already accomplished more than Gaze ever did in the NBA.

Well, Luc Longley has accomplished more in the NBA than both of them put together. I used to put Gaze not too high too, but finally gave up. While Australians might have had more export-ready players (read: talented bigs), Gaze was the one who used to put that team together - even with grey in his hair.

Besides, he's an icon of international basketball. Watching that old man pass the ball into the paint for a young hairy dominating stud like Bogut - that really makes you stop and think - "vow, that must have been the spirit of Olympics, wasn't it? And I thought it was just a metaphor..."

Well, that might be only my own image of Gaze and international basketball. If you meet an Australian fan, you might also get some Larry Bird-comparisons